Trend-Driven Innovation: Beat Accelerating Customer Expectations

by Henry Mason, David Mattin, Maxwell Luthy

Trend-Driven Innovation

Beat accelerating customer expectations.

Every business leader, entrepreneur, innovator, and marketer wants to know where customers are headed. The problem? The received wisdom on how to find out is wrong.

In this startling new book, the team at TrendWatching share a powerful, counter-intuitive truth: to discover what people want next, stop looking at customers and start looking at businesses. That means learning how to draw powerful insights from the way leading brands and disruptive startups―from Apple to Uber, Chipotle to Patagonia―redefine customer expectations.

Sharing the secrets that have led thousands of the world's most successful brands and agencies to rely on TrendWatching for over a decade, Trend-Driven Innovation is the book that will reconfigure your view of the business world forever.

You'll learn:
Amid the endless change that defines today's business environment, opportunity is everywhere. Highly practical, and featuring real-world examples from around the world, Trend-Driven Innovation is the actionable, battle-tested manual that will enable you harness those opportunities time after time. Setting you up to build an organization that matters, products customers love, and campaigns people can't stop talking about.

Genres: Business, Design, Nonfiction, Entrepreneurship

368 pages, Paperback

First published October 5, 2015

Reviews

[☼Bookish in Virginia☼]

"And despite the global consumer arena being more diverse
and varied than it has ever been, it's inhabitants share a common
mind-set: astonishingly elevated expectations...."

Very true.

I mean these days I'm just a mom and on the cutting edge of nothing, but that doesn't keep me from being frustrated at what I perceive as the sluggish pace of progress. It simply is not moving as fast as I want. It's as if all the 'miracles' of modern society --cell phones, super fast internet, Uber, flash-dining, Twitter, texting, small laptops, et.al.-- has only made me appreciate how much easier and fun these things make my life, which in turn makes me want MORE.

This team calls this the Expectation Economy.

The book begins by talking about Creative Destruction. How tearing down the old can generate untold new ways of viewing the world and consequently reinventing how things are done.

The authors discuss the current stable of Movers and Shakers -- your pre-tailers, your Ubers. And while this discussion won't help spur your business to new heights I do think it will help you formulate a meta-framework to understand Trends and teach you something about recognizing the patterns yourself.

Another way to say this is it will help you to understand what consumers want. That said, it appeared to me that the authors were addressing only part of the market because they were focused on trends. My dad and his clique are probably going to be under-represented in some respects when it comes to this type of focus. I don't think they are looking for 'advancement' and 'meaning'. (Although never say never.)

In the same way the lower half of the income groups probably face similar inclusion problems.

SUMMARY
This is a smart, well written book that is visually appealing. It should rank on the should-read shelf for business majors.

As for business owners, large and small, I think there's a lot to gain here. And if you aren't a big reader consider that you can cherry pick or just leave this book in the little room and read a short chapter at a time. An example of what you can learn is this: That one clever way to be a trend watcher is to observe what products people are lavishing attention on.

This is probably the best book I've read on trends.

~review copy
~book #5 for 2016

[Oksana Hoshva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book from TrendWatching (the world's leading independent consumer trends firm) team!
Learn about Expectations Economy, Post-Demographic Consumerism, what is a consumer trend, how to spot, track, prioritize, act on, deploy and get ahead of trends. Almost any trend can offer you powerful innovation opportunity - use Consumer Trend Radar (to create your trend-let strategy) and Consumer Trend Canvas (as an ideation tool to come up with ideas for products, services or businesses). Looking forward to turn insights into ideas and trends into innovations and run trend-driven strategy planning sessions using the methodology provided (you can download canvas) and well explained.

"Build the culture of customer-centered innovation, not customer-led innovation. You can know what customers will start to want. Not by asking them, but by looking at the businesses and products that people are lavishing love and attention now".

"While more/better/faster data can lead to valuable insights, data driven innovation is often incremental in nature. Data is fantastic at validation and optimization, but bad at generating the radical and unconventional connections that underpin many successful innovations".

"The New Normal. Remember, the lifestyles of your customers - and potential customers - are changing; so should you".

[Danilo Weiner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Escrever um livro sobre tendências que se mantêm atual, mesmo depois de 3 anos, é merito do pessoal da Trendwatching, super referência no assunto. O mais interessante é que eles não se contentam apenas em trazer frameworks pra ajudar a tornar o assunto mais prático e aplicável, mas arriscam trazendo macrotendências que acreditam - eu também - serem atuais e universais. Recomendo.

[Meredith Jao · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great comprehensive view of trends and how trends behave

[Niche · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a professional designer, I would like to recommend this book to anyone who aim to make better products, services, and systems for both current and future consumers. The book is well-constructed, suit for beginner Trend Analyst – or whoever wanted to understand (or influenced) where we will going. After I've finished the book, I may tell that favourite part is the first-half: understanding the present movements. The rest of the book, the generation of consumer trend canvas, is useful as well. But to make the most out of them, you need to "stay hungry" enough to collect data and informations.

The visual language and its readability helped me enjoy the book through the end.
ps. The creators provided the additional materials on the website, which we need a code access the download page. The code could be found in the book.